Clean Slate (2015)

Logline: Grace Caldwell's life devolves into chaos when she inadvertently inspires one of the most famous people in the world, renowned socialite Oliver Kennington, to leave behind his privileged yet unfulfilling world of luxury to pursue a normal life out of the spotlight.

Grace:

That’s not my fault. The laundromat cat keeps eating my socks.

Victoria:

What am I going to do with you?

Grace:

Respectfully accept my choices sans judgement

Victoria:

This is no time for tomfoolery. Your job’s a joke; you’re broke; and your love life’s D.O.A.

Grace:

Please don’t quote Friends to me, mother.

Victoria:

What’s Friends? Those are the lyrics to my favorite Rembrandts song.

If memory serves, this is the first straight comedy I wrote after shooting Semi-Charmed Life but before hearing that it wasn't going to get picked up. Or maybe I finished this while in pre-production? I'm not sure. The good news is that literally nobody on planet earth cares when I wrote this. Including me. So the stakes are admittedly pretty low.

I do recall daydreaming about a scenario where Semi-Charmed got picked up and a Hollywood type would be like, "Wowza! What other scripts does this wunderkind have?!" And I'd be like, "Can I really be a wunderkind if I’ve been pursuing this career for ten years and I'm writing about the Frozen trailer for $25 so that I can pay my rent?" And the Hollywood type would just laugh and smoke her comically oversized cigar while saying words like 'buzz', 'biz,' and 'avocado' while half-reading a Deadline story about a potential That '70s Show reunion on The Ranch.

I think this script review is going very well so far.

Nora:

I admit I may have a healthy conversational appetite when talking about myself, but I’m not vain.

Trevor:

When I told you my grandfather, the man who raised me, died, you...

Nora:

I was having a traumatic month! Sarah, this gigantic, super basic girl from acting class, beat me out for the lead in Sarah, Plain and Tall.

Anyway, I initially believed I'd be able to get this script read by producers/agents/fans of Entourage since I was technically the creator of a TV show. While shooting the pilot, I took a few meetings in Beverly Hills. I say Beverly Hills instead of LA because I'm terrible at bragging and I desperately hope your brain subconsciously associates me with Luke Perry.

These meetings generally went well. Phrases like "the next big thing" and "dynamite script" were bandied about, but eventually the person I was meeting with arrived and I had to stop making Stuart Smalley-esque affirmations into my phone and make small talk for 5-7 minutes before getting down to business. Related, at one of these meetings, I insisted on paying, which I inferred wasn't normal from the agent saying "This has literally never happened before.”

On the bright side, $60 to discover you're an idiot is a fairly reasonable fee.

I think the germ of this idea came from me thinking, “I bet it’d be fun to date Anna Kendrick." Since the “schlubby dude/hot wife” plot has been done to death, I liked the idea of flipping it and having a celebrity falling for a cool, “secretly the smartest person in the room” type. In terms of the celeb, I didn't want to have the person be an actor or famous for anything of note. Oliver Kennington was born into fame. I don't remember the exact inspiration for the character, but if memory serves I believe I confused Calvin Harris with being Calvin Klein's son due to the fact that I’ve yet to master how surnames and/or Google works.

Nora:

Congratulations on the new job at Foot Locker, doofus.

Avery:

In five years I’ll be buying a summer home in Cape Cod while you toil away trying to book local pizza commercials.

Nora:

Local? I’ll have you know I was this close to nabbing a national spot.

(to Grace)

But the director said I kept giving the pizza sex eyes. But in non sexy-pizza news, Trevor’s giving me a second chance.

Avery:

The guy you broke up with because he was a contestant on Nickelodeon’s Guts?

Nora:

No. That was Simon. It’s like, yeah, you climbed the Aggro Crag, but, like, have some gd chill about it, bozo